In the news today: gasoline in the Toronto area jumped by some 12.9 cents in one night as "oil refiners brace for a possible disruption by Hurricane Ike as it rampages through the Gulf of Mexico", according to the paper.
Read that again. Prices rise because of a possible disruption.
Tell me again why price-fixing is illegal in every industry save for petroleum.
Tell me why oil company executives and the politicians who are kneeling in front of their open trousers aren't in jail.
Tell me why the gasoline that's already in tanks in the ground at the service station, purchased at the going rate when it was pumped in there, suddenly rises by almost 13 cents per litre because the oil companies might have a disruption.
Beyond that, I'd sure like someone to tell me how -- because I can't figure it out for myself -- raising the price of the petroleum already at the station is going to do anything to help the situation in the Gulf of Mexico. What effect does it have on any possible disruption? Perhaps if I pay an extra 25 cents a litre, Ike will shift its pattern and leave the oil rigs alone? Hey, if I spend an extra buck a litre, do you think that'll save any houses in Galveston?
Yes, I know, it's all about speculation and futures and George Bush's friends being able to buy yet another gold-plated bathroom faucet. But when the Farmer's Almanac predicts an unusually dry summer, loaves of bread don't jump fifty cents the day after the magazine hits the newsstands. And even when Gustav started coming towards Florida, I didn't see my local store hiking the price of a bottle of orange juice.
I think what makes me the angriest is that our politicians can stand there and with straight faces, tell us that there's no collusion. I've been in a gas station and watched the attendant take a phone call and then switch the sign to match the newly-raised price of the competitor's station across the street, and yet the oil companies can tell me, with straight faces, that they don't collaborate on the prices. That's the point when I'd love to fill the back of my pickup truck with full gas cans and ram it right through Stephen Harper's front door. Okay, so this is what you're going to charge me for gasoline -- I can live with that. What none of you seem to understand is that it's not just the prices. What the public is truly sick and tired of is the fact that you're all bald-faced liars. We can handle the truth. We just can't handle you.
